Daily Archives: April 26, 2007

Not only is the European parliament’s commute to Strasbourg burning 200m euros of taxpayers’ money a year. It is also burning at least 20,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, a report published by the Green party on Wednesday showed.

The 785 MEPs and their baggage train spend one week a month in the French city in a spirit of European solidarity. The first serious research into their carbon footprint is released to coincide with the setting up of a temporary committee on climate change.

Claude Turmes, a ponytailed Green from Luxembourg, said MEPs take chauffeur-driven limousines from office to restaurant and yet have called on Europe to cut emissions by 25 per cent between 1990 and 2020. “This is exactly what citizens detest in politicians: saying one thing and doing another.”

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The authors

Alex Barker is the FT's Brussels bureau chief, covering foreign policy, some of the migration crisis and all things Brexit. He started in Brussels on the single market, financial regulation and competition beat. He was formerly an political correspondent in Westminster and joined the FT in 2005.

Duncan Robinson is the FT's Brussels correspondent, covering internet and telecommunications regulation, justice, employment and migration as well as Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. He joined the FT from the New Statesman in 2011.

Jim Brunsden joined the Financial Times as an EU Correspondent in August 2015. He began his career in Brussels in 2006, as a reporter first for Europolitics, and then European Voice. Prior to joining the FT he covered financial regulation for Bloomberg from 2010 to 2015.